Hot 20 – How happy will you be after the smoke clears at Homestead?

As the final four prepare to thunder to their fate at Homestead, not everyone is thrilled with the new format to determine the Cup champion. Again and again I read how appreciative some are for NASCAR allowing them to do other things on a Sunday afternoon than watch a sport they have abandoned. It would seem more than a few do not see the elimination format as one that might determine a true champion, or promote a style of racing they can support.

Some might argue that Denny Hamlin should not even be in the mix considering his season long points total. The thing is, a win and an automatic berth into the Chase allowed him to take a couple of races off to mend, and he took advantage of it. You can’t fault a man for using the rules to his own advantage.

You might find some fault in Joey Logano. Sure, he is not universally loved, but you cannot fault with what he has done on the track this season. Pick any format you like and Logano is a contender. No Chase, and Logano would trail Jeff Gordon by 29 points. The old Chase format has Logano ahead of Kevin Harvick by the same amount. Even my own format in setting up my Hot 20 all season, awarding a 25 point bonus for a win rather than just 3, has Logano within seven of Gordon over the course of the season.

Hell, I even put together some stats for if we had a 31 race regular season, followed by a five race playoff format that was restricted to only the top 20 contenders. Logano, along with Harvick, Hamlin, and Ryan Newman, would still have their shot, but so would three others. The good news is that Brad Keselowski, Matt Kenseth, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. would still be realistically in contention. The bad news is that with the results from Talladega and Texas, Jeff Gordon would not.

No format would satisfy everybody. There is no question the present system, from the win and in method of making the Chase, to the elimination rounds, to the final dash, has caused some excitement. While season long challengers like Gordon, Keselowski, and Earnhardt are no longer eligible, the loss of playoff favorites has not reduced the legitimacy of eventual champions in other sports. If Major League Baseball was truer to his roots, with its playoffs restricted to the champions of 4 eight team divisions, the San Francisco Giants would not have even been a contender. They would have finished behind the Dodgers and Cardinals in an expanded NL West, never mind becoming the World Series champions.

As they say, it is what it is. Logano, Harvick, Newman, and Hamlin will each be driving to claim their first Cup championship. All are worthy, all are talented, and each should be acceptable as the 2014 champion as they would have claimed the prize under the rules of the day.

That said, Jeff Gordon remains our hottest of the hot over the course of the entire season.

A former radio and television broadcaster, newspaper columnist, Little League baseball coach, Ron Thornton has been following NASCAR on this site since 2004. While his focus may have changed over recent years, he continues to make periodic appearances only when he has something to say. That makes him a rather unique journalist.

1 COMMENT

This championship will need an asterisk after it for the most stupid way to get to championship. NA$CAR had this idea that winning was everything. Now some guy an finish 10th and become champion. The only way to prove a championship winner is a heads up race between the 4, or even the 8 before phoenix. Nobody wins without being a winner on the final race, or match race.

The there is the insanity of having to wreck guys. The 2 jerks who did this aren’t deserving (thankfully one isn’t) of racing for a title.

I can’t wait until after the race until the fist fights begin. I hope Pemberton, Helton, Darby and others serve as the ones to break up the fights and get busted up.

It’s all over for me after this year. NA$CAR, tell you sponsors that you are losing thousands of fans because of your stupidity.